Let’s talk about something that sounds simple, but actually says a lot about your leadership (like most things in this area):

How do you respond when someone asks a question?

Not your intended response.
Your actual response—especially when you’re busy, stressed, or under pressure.

Because that’s the one your team remembers.

Most leaders would say they’re open to questions.
But in practice and very much reality, that’s not always what’s being experienced.

Sometimes it’s the tone.
Sometimes it’s a rushed answer.
Sometimes it’s that subtle frustration that slips through when you’re already juggling too much.

So over time, they stop asking, because instead of knowing ‘everything’, or even enough, they’ve just learned it’s safer not to. To ask more, might even feel like it creates a danger to their livelihood.

What actually happens when people stop asking questions

It doesn’t create efficiency.

It creates hesitation.

People start second-guessing themselves. They either sit in confusion longer than they need to, or they just take a stab at it and hope for the best. Except sometimes this means more mistakes, more rework, and more things get missed entirely.

All of that takes more time than just answering the question in the first place, and it sure as hell doesn’t build trust.

But beyond the practical side of it, people also feel worse, which impacts your workplace culture.

Whether they feel less confident, less capable, or less supported, your culture and reputation is the one that suffers when this happens.

And yes, there’s a difference between:

  • Asking the same question over and over when the resource is right there
  • Asking a thoughtful question because you want to actually understand what you’re doing

We’re talking about the second one. Because when someone understands something properly, they don’t just complete the task, they can actually do something with it. They’ve synthesised the information, or the process, or the why and are able to understand WHY and HOW they can apply it in future.

Why this matters more than you think

If someone feels like they can’t ask a question, they carry that with them through the entire task. It becomes mental noise, a bit like the ambient stress that sits in the background.

“Am I doing this right?”
“Is this what they meant?”
“What if I’m wasting time doing it wrong?”

That’s a lot of extra load to carry for something that could have been cleared up in 30 seconds. I see this a lot, where when someone hits a wall, everything feels stuck and harder than it needs to be, and definitely more frustrating than necessary. When people feel like they can clear that noise, they also feel like they can just get on with it (and usually happily!)

So what do you do with this?

You don’t need to overhaul everything. You don’t even need to overhaul anything.

Just start paying attention and notice how you respond the next time someone asks a question.
Especially when it’s inconvenient, because that moment conveys more than you think.

Every one of those moments is either reinforcing:
“I can ask here”
or
“I’ll just figure it out next time”

And one of those leads to better work, better thinking, and a much more capable team.

Listen to the Get Jasched podcast episode that discusses this topic here: Why Leaders Encourage Questions – Building a Culture of Clarity, Trust, and Performance.